So according to this story, a Swedish school kid invited everyone bar two classmates to his birthday party, and the parents of the omitted children complained to the national parliament, citing "discrimination". Eh?!
As far as I know there isn't a law against not inviting people to one's birthday party, and if there is there shouldn't be. I thought Sweden was supposed to be good with legal common sensibilities?
Yes, it must be difficult for the two children who were the only ones in the class not to receive an invitation, but they might have thought about that before doing the same to start with (in the case of the first child) and having a fight with the birthday boy to be (in the case of the second).
Being left out and seeing ramnifications of one's arguments is part and parcel of life, and school ought to be teaching this. Instead, this Swedish school seems more interested in teaching children to abuse the claim of "rights" and to cry foul whenever life rolls them the hard six.
A sorry state of affairs to be sure.
The BBC has published a few striking images of people with the oft-mentioned disease known as leprosy. See, in particular, the comment on picture 4.
The majority of those living in Mutemwa today contracted leprosy before treatment existed, though many cultures still mistakenly view leprosy as a punishment from a god or evil spirit.
My own personal views aside, what right does the BBC have to call this view "mistaken"? Neutral public media my ass…
I was about to discuss how annoyingly terrible this song is and, well, it is. But before I could get too far explaining why it had already been playing long enough for its catchy nature to take hold and rope me in. I suppose it'll be rearing its ugly head on my playlist once in a while from now on.
Still, why's the video set on the RMS Titanic, a ship that sank and killed 1,517 people? Not very respectful, is it? "You all died, haha, we're going to throw a massive party and sing songs, then we'll mock the Hollywood blockbuster that made US $1.8 billion out of vaguely retelling the story of your doom."
Nice one, Toy-Box.
Malia Llerena happily sips chardonnay, zinfandel, Champagne and merlot. She knows red wine goes in the larger glasses and Champagne gets the long, skinny flutes. And of course, she can identify a corkscrew. After all, she's already 5 years old.
They say the girl's first coherent sentence was, "may I have more Champagne, please?"
Naturally, there's a whole load of negative response to this. Parents and child health groups are up in arms because this kid is being fed a neurotoxin at such a young age.
But as Athens-based Greek food writer Diane Kochilas points out, "offering a sip of something that is sanctioned culturally, religiously and even scientifically in the Mediterranean is hardly akin to setting a child on the path to alcoholism," she says.
In fact what the naysayers apparently fail to realise is that this girl will probably NEVER go binge drinking. Malia will never see alcohol as a forbidden, adult thing and thus be tempted to break the rules to spite the older generation, the way most kids do nowadays. She'll always do it in moderation, so hurray (although five years old may be pushing it a little).
On a larger scale, the UK government annoys me when they try to come up with more ways to control the youthful generation of the population. "All the yobs are drinking more so here's an idea, let's make it even more hidden and even more 'not allowed' so that they won't want it any more, and let's ignore the fact that similar ideas started the problem in the first place."
The UK has a very big problem with binge drinking, and we need to find a real solution for it: one that doesn't involve making dangerous products look more attractive to the sort of people who thrive on spiting authority.
